Not A Good Week For Clemens Prosecutors

Roger Clemens’ friend and former teammate, Andy Pettitte took the stand Tuesday and as expected told the jury about a conversation during which Clemens admitted to using Human Growth Hormone.

During cross-examination defense attorney Michael Attanasio got Pettitte to agree that the discussion about HGH was “passing” and “casual”, and that it was possible that he may have – as Clemens once put it – “misremembered.”

On Wednesday it got worse. Attanasio asked Pettitte if it would be fair to say there was a 50-50 chance he had misunderstood Clemens. Pettitte replied, “I’d say that’s fair.”

When the defense asked Judge Walton to strike Andy Pettitte’s testimony about the HGH conversation because it is “insufficiently definitive” the judge took the opportunity to chide prosecutor Steven Durham.

“His testimony now before the jury is, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Walton told Durham. “I thought that what we would hear is, ‘Mr. Pettitte, currently, what is your memory of what Mr. Clemens told you back in 1999?’ ”

“I was waiting for you to ask, and you didn’t ask that.”

The week ended with testimony by FDA agent Jeff Novitsky who established where trainer Brian McNamee got the HGH that he claims he injected Clemens with, and identified syringes, needles and cotton balls bearing Roger Clemens’ DNA given to him by McNamee. Novitsky was a very credible witness, and seemed to connect with jurors looking straight at them as he spoke.

Courtartist is me, Art Lien. I've been sketching the courts since 1976, and for most of that time the U.S. Supreme Court has been my regular beat. I've been working almost exclusively for NBC News since 1980.
Courtroom sketching is a form of visual journalism or reportage drawing that is slowly dying out. Where once upon a time news organization each had their own artist covering a story, today a "pool" artist often sketches for all. It is a demanding and stressful discipline where the drawing is often done directly and under tight deadline.